Crock-Pot Is Taking Heat From ‘This Is Us’ Fans Over Jack’s [SPOILER]

Now that NBC’s This Is Us has revealed the major circumstances surrounding Jack’s fate, fans are doing what comes most natural: attacking Crock-Pot for unsafe fictional products. Fortunately, Crock-Pot is on hand to defend themselves, and – yes – this is a real story in 2018.

You’re warned of light spoilers for This Is Us from here on out, but where fans have more or less known since the premiere that Milo Ventimiglia’s Jack perished in a fire, only this past Tuesday’s “That’ll Be the Day” revealed the source of the blaze. Following a failed Super Bowl party, Jack switched off an old Crock-Pot gifted by a neighbor years earlier, forgetting his warning that the faulty switch had a tendency to leave the machine on.

As you can imagine, completely rational groups of fans took to yelling at the Crock-Pot brand over social media, for which the company was compelled to release an actual statement on the matter to TVLine:

Crock-Pot understands the concerns brought up by last night’s episode of This Is Us, and we too are heartbroken by the latest development in Jack’s storyline. However, it is important that our consumers understand and have confidence that all Crock-Pot slow cookers exceed all internal testing protocols and all applicable industry safety standards and regulations as verified by independent third-party testing labs. For nearly 50 years, with over 100 million Crock-Pots sold, we have never received any consumer complaints similar to the fictional events portrayed in last night’s episode. In fact, the safety and design of our product renders this type of event nearly impossible.

In addition, and most relevant to the concerns consumers are having after watching the recent This Is Us episode, our Crock-Pot slow cookers are low current, low wattage (typically no more than 200 or 300 watts) appliances with self-regulating, heating elements. The product is designed to cook foods over a longer period of time at low temperatures and the switches connect to only 1 side of the power line voltage, so there is never a high voltage applied directly across our switches. The switches within our slow cookers are subjected to additional internal testing, which includes a Rotary Knob Endurance test, Rotary Knob Force Test and Flame Burning Test and constructed of self-extinguishing, flame resistant material.

Our hope is that the team at NBC’s This Is Us will help us spread factual information regarding our product’s safety. While we know their primary mission is to entertain – something they have continued to excel in – we also feel they have a responsibility to inform. Just like many fans, we will be watching next week’s episode to see how Jack’s story progresses and, regardless of the outcome, we want consumers first and foremost to know they are safe when using their Crock-Pot.

For his part, showrunner Dan Fogelman also stepped in to defend the beleaguered brand:

At the very least, the February 4 Super Bowl episode will provide additional context to Jack’s fiery end, so who knows? Maybe Jack’s final, agonizing words are a passionate soliloquy of forgiveness to the Crock-Pot brand. Anyway, the company we should really be mad at is Kleenex. Those jerks are costing us a fortune.